Can Enzo Maresca get his side back on track in the Premier League? We look ahead to Saturday’s clash with our Aston Villa vs Chelsea prediction and preview.
Aston Villa vs Chelsea Stats: The Key Insights
- Chelsea narrowly edged the pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer, winning 38.3% compared to Aston Villa’s 36.8%.
- Villa have lost just one of their last 22 Premier League home games on Saturdays (W16 D5).
- Chelsea have lost four of their last eight Premier League matches (W2 D2), more than they had in their previous 32 games combined.
Enzo Maresca will be demanding a response after Chelsea‘s lacklustre defeat at Brighton, with another daunting away task awaiting on Saturday against Aston Villa.
Chelsea were hammered 3-0 by Fabian Hürzeler’s side last Friday, just six days after being beaten 2-1 by Brighton at the Amex Stadium in the FA Cup.
It continued a concerning run for Chelsea, who have dropped to sixth in the table after losing four of their last eight Premier League matches. That is as many defeats as they had suffered in their previous 32 games combined (W19 D10 L3).
Worryingly for Maresca, Chelsea failed to have a single shot on target in their top-flight defeat to Brighton, doing so in a Premier League match for the first time since September 2021 against Manchester City.
The south-coast humbling was also only the third time this season Chelsea accumulated less than at least 1.00 expected goals (xG), managing a seasonal low of 0.54, though Maresca may point to the absence of first-choice striker Nicolas Jackson.
Christopher Nkunku deputised for the injured forward but failed to attempt a shot, and had just two touches in Brighton’s box during a defeat that also saw Noni Madueke limp off in the first half.
Those attacking absences only make the task harder for Maresca, whose side have scored just two goals in their last five Premier League away matches (D2 L3). They had scored nine in their two away games before this run (5-1 vs Southampton, 4-3 vs Tottenham).
However, Chelsea are still creating chances. In their last five away league games they have underperformed their xG by 4.8 (2 goals, 6.8 xG), which pinpoints a lack of clinical finishing.
Cole Palmer will know all too well about those profligate struggles, last recording an assist in the Premier League against Villa in December for Enzo Fernández. Palmer has created 33 chances for 12 different teammates without any of them being converted since then.
Turning around their form at Villa Park will prove a tough ask, too, given Villa have lost just one of their last 22 Premier League home games played on Saturdays (W16 D5). That came in a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal in August, which like this fixture was also a 17:30 kick-off.
Unai Emery’s side produced a battling performance on Wednesday night to hold league leaders Liverpool to a 2-2 draw, with Trent Alexander-Arnold’s deflected strike rescuing a point at Villa Park. Ollie Watkins’ second goal in as many games had earlier edged Villa ahead after Youri Tielemans had cancelled out an opener from Mohamed Salah.
On-loan forward Marcus Rashford started that clash and will fancy his chances on Saturday. He has scored four goals in eight home Premier League appearances against Chelsea, doing so for Manchester United in 2016-17 (one goal), 2019-20 (two) and 2022-23 (one).
Axel Disasi impressed as another loanee against Liverpool but will be unavailable against his parent club, joining the injured Pau Torres, Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara as absentees. Ezri Konsa, Leon Bailey and Ross Barkley will all be assessed as potential returns.
Aston Villa vs Chelsea Head-to-Head
Villa have won just two of their last 11 Premier League home games against Chelsea (D2 L7), triumphing 1-0 in March 2014 and 2-1 in May 2021.
In fact, Chelsea have won 13 Premier League away games against Villa, only winning more at Spurs (16) and Southampton (15) in the competition’s history.
Jackson, Fernández and Palmer were all on target as Chelsea romped to a 3-0 triumph at Stamford Bridge in the reverse meeting on 1 December, too.
That defeat played its part in Villa’s recent downturn against sides from London. They won 10 consecutive Premier League matches against capital-city clubs between April 2023 and February 2024 but since then have managed just four wins out of 15 against such teams (D6 L5).
Aston Villa vs Chelsea Prediction
The Opta supercomputer struggled to split these two sides – but Chelsea sneaked in as narrow favourites by winning 38.3% of 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Villa still hold a 36.8% chance of taking all three points, suggesting this will be a close-fought clash on Saturday evening, while the draw was rated at 24.9%.
Aston Villa vs Chelsea Predicted Lineups
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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